A Church Plant on the South Side of Lexington
Providence Community Church began in August 2007 when a small group of believers in Lexington, Kentucky came together to plant a new congregation committed to proclaiming Christ as a caring community of God-exalting disciple makers. Eighteen years later, the church is in a season of transition: it has outgrown its original arrangements and is currently sharing space with a partner school while preparing to build its own permanent home.
For now, the congregation gathers on the south side of Lexington, meeting at Trinity Christian Academy's Upper School Building, also called the Cowen Campus, at 800 East Brannon Road in Nicholasville, just a few minutes from the city. Services are held in the school's cafetorium, and the church's leadership speaks warmly about Trinity's willingness to share the new building during this season of growth. The church has also purchased property on Clays Mill Road where its future permanent facility will one day stand.
Worship on Sunday Morning and Afternoon
Providence runs three distinct Sunday gatherings to serve the people who walk through its doors.
The day begins at 9:00 a.m. with The Gathering, a time of Sunday morning classes designed to help attendees dive deeper into the Word before the main service.
At 10:30 a.m. the Worship Service begins. This weekly gathering is the heart of the church's life together, with gospel-saturated preaching and congregational worship. Nursery care is provided during the service, and children's classes are available through second grade, so families with younger children can fully participate. The service is livestreamed each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. through Vimeo, and recordings remain available in the Livestream Archive. An older audio archive of pre-pandemic services is also still accessible.
At 4:00 p.m., the building opens again for Swahili Worship and Bible Study, a weekly afternoon service conducted entirely in Swahili. This bilingual rhythm reflects the international reach of the congregation and gives Swahili-speaking believers a regular opportunity to worship in their heart language.
A Mission Built on Four Words
Providence distills its purpose into a single sentence and four words. Its mission is to proclaim Christ as a caring community of God-exalting disciple makers, and the members pursue that mission through four practices:
- Delight. Drawing on Psalm 34, the church teaches that worship is the response of the heart to the grace, mercy, love and faithfulness of God in Christ. Delight in God fuels both obedience and service.
- Declare. From Psalm 96, the church aims to be a community that faithfully proclaims Christ - through preaching, teaching and everyday conversation - to neighbors and to the nations.
- Disciple. From the Great Commission in Matthew 28, members are taught that growth in grace is a Spirit-empowered process that happens as they learn Scripture and then teach it to others.
- Depend. From Hebrews 4, the church confesses its own weakness and its absolute need for Christ's presence, mercy and wisdom to fulfill what it has been called to do.
Statement of Faith
Providence holds to a detailed Baptist confession of faith, last revised in 2016, that walks through the doctrines commonly taught in the historic evangelical Baptist tradition. The eighteen articles cover the Scriptures, the one true God in three Persons, the fall of man, the way of salvation by grace through Christ, justification by faith, the freeness of salvation, regeneration, repentance and faith, God's purpose of grace (election), sanctification, the perseverance of saints, the harmony of law and gospel, the nature of a gospel church, baptism and the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Day, civil government, the righteous and the wicked, and the world to come.
Baptism is understood as the immersion of a believer in water into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Lord's Supper is a memorial meal of bread and wine in which believers commemorate the dying love of Christ, preceded by solemn self-examination. The church recognizes that some genuine believers have not been baptized as adults, and while they are welcome to share in the Supper, they are not admitted to formal membership until they are baptized in accordance with the statement.
A shorter What We Believe page summarizes the same convictions in plainer language, emphasizing the inspiration and trustworthiness of Scripture, the Trinity, the deity and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, salvation by grace through faith, the work of the Holy Spirit, the reality of human sinfulness, and the Christian calling to live for God's glory in service to others.
The Eldership
The church is shepherded by a plurality of elders. Paul Valentine is the Lead Teaching Pastor and Elder. He and his family moved to Lexington in the summer of 2006 to plant the church, which officially formed the following August. He is a graduate of a Master of Divinity program and preaches most Sundays. His family includes his wife Carrie and their four children.
Peter van der Hoeven is a lay elder with responsibilities in teaching, community group leadership, deacon board oversight, and Swahili church integration. A mechanical engineer who has worked at Lexmark since 1989, Peter is married to Debbie and has seven daughters, three sons and a growing number of grandchildren.
Dr. Matt Bush, M.D., Ph.D., is a chartering member of Providence and has served as an elder since 2014. He is a faculty physician in the Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Kentucky. He and his wife Karyn have five children, and he contributes to teaching, mission efforts, and the teen ministry.
Colby Willen joined Providence in 2008 and assists in directing the teaching ministry, shares in shepherding, and helps with counseling. He holds a Master of Divinity in Theology from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and lives with his wife Christi and their five daughters.
Community Groups Around the City
Providence believes that perseverance is a community project, and so much of the congregation's life happens in smaller Community Groups that meet in homes around the greater Lexington area on weeknights and weekends. The groups gather for fellowship, prayer, Bible study and mutual care.
- Two Sunday groups: one that meets at 6:00 p.m. weekly and rotates between North Lexington and Harrodsburg Road inside Man O' War, and another that meets at 6:00 p.m. on the second and fourth Sundays of the month in the Tates Creek Road area.
- Three Wednesday groups: one at 7:00 p.m. that rotates between members' homes, another at 6:30 p.m. in the Man O' War and Tates Creek Road area, and another at 6:30 p.m. on Harrodsburg Road just into the Nicholasville area.
- A Friday group at 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Friday of the month in the Hamburg area.
Anyone interested in joining a group can email or call the church office to be connected with a leader.
Children, Youth and Every Member Ministry
Providence welcomes families. During the 10:30 a.m. worship service, nursery care is provided and children's classes run through second grade so that the youngest members of the household can begin learning the Bible alongside their parents' worship. Dr. Matt Bush carries a particular focus on the teen ministry among the eldership.
The church operates an Every Member Ministry philosophy, which means members are encouraged to find a place to serve. Three regular Sunday-morning teams make the weekly gathering possible:
- The Welcome Team greets attendees at the front door, gives direction to newcomers, monitors the hallways and helps people find seats in the cafetorium.
- The Prep Team handles setup and teardown for the service each Sunday.
- The A/V Team runs the soundboard, slides and webcast during worship.
Sign-up information for all three teams is gathered through a single link posted on announcement slides and around the Trinity Campus.
The Swahili-Speaking Church
One distinctive feature of Providence is its Swahili-language ministry. The 4:00 p.m. Sunday Swahili Worship and Bible Study is a regular gathering for Swahili-speaking brothers and sisters, and elder Peter van der Hoeven has been charged with overseeing Swahili church integration. The ministry reflects the church's conviction that the gospel crosses language and culture, and it pairs naturally with Dr. Matt Bush's regular teaching trips to Nairobi, where he works alongside colleagues at the University of Nairobi and engages in medical mission work.
Resources for Growing Christians
A Recommended Readings page on the church's site doubles as a curated library. Curated by the elders, it begins with general works on the gospel and Christian life (titles from Jerry Bridges, Tim Keller, John Piper, Milton Vincent and others), then moves into topic-by-topic lists on evangelism, suffering, prayer, parenting, marriage, devotions, Bible study tools and theology. Many of the books by John Piper are also available as free downloads through desiringgod.org, and the page links out to christianbook.com, wtsbooks.com and cvbbs.com as alternative retailers.
For those who cannot attend in person, the church's livestream on Vimeo carries the 10:30 a.m. service each Sunday. Recordings remain available in the Livestream Archive, with sermons listed in chronological order from most recent to oldest.
Constitution, Covenant and Membership
Providence is a self-governing, elder-led congregation. The constitution, originally adopted on August 26, 2007 and last updated in 2019, names the church as Providence Community Baptist Church and sets out its membership process, its elder-and-deacon structure, its elections, finances, dispute-resolution commitment and procedures for amendment.
Members must be believers in Jesus Christ who have been baptized by immersion following their conversion and who wholeheartedly embrace the statement of faith and the church covenant. The 2019 Church Covenant is the working agreement members make with one another: to proclaim Christ and make disciples, to contribute to a caring community of love, accountability and forgiveness, and to give glory to God through obedience, worship and a life shaped by the gospel.
Students and others temporarily living in the Lexington area may apply for associate membership while retaining membership in a home church elsewhere. The constitution also makes provision for a disciplined but restorative process of church membership, with the goal always being repentance, reconciliation and the glory of God.
Giving and Getting in Touch
Those who wish to support the ministry of Providence can do so through the church's online giving page. The best way to reach the church office is by email at paul@pcclex.org or by phone at 859-533-9151. Visitors planning to attend are welcome to come as they are and join the gathered church for a morning of worship, teaching and fellowship at the Trinity Christian Academy campus on Brannon Road.